China Censored Google's AlphaGo Match Against World's Best Go Player (theguardian.com) 93
DeepMind's board game-playing AI, AlphaGo, may well have won its first game against the Go world number one, Ke Jie, from China -- but most Chinese viewers could not watch the match live. From a report: The Chinese government had issued a censorship notice to broadcasters and online publishers, warning them against livestreaming Tuesday's game, according to China Digital Times, a site that regularly posts such notices in the name of transparency. "Regarding the go match between Ke Jie and AlphaGo, no website, without exception, may carry a livestream," the notice read. "If one has been announced in advance, please immediately withdraw it." The ban did not just cover video footage: outlets were banned from covering the match live in any way, including text commentary, social media, or push notifications. It appears the government was concerned that 19-year-old Ke, who lost the first of three scheduled games by a razor-thin half-point margin, might have suffered a more damaging defeat that would hurt the national pride of a state which holds Go close to its heart.
China needs to go (Score:5, Funny)
Re:China needs to go (Score:5, Insightful)
Go is the Japanese name of the game, the Chinese name is weiqi. So you should say China needs to weiqi.
Re:China needs to go (Score:5, Funny)
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Congrats, you've won the (Chinese) Internets for today.
Wait a sec, "won" is Korean.
Okay, you've yuan the Chinese Internets for today.
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They need to go grow up. It indeed just keeps on giving.
Re:China needs to go (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. China is one of the oldest contiguous civilizations on the planet, and yet it acts like some sort of second-rate banana republic that just gained independence a few years ago. Does it really matter if a computer can beat a strategy game champion? We all know it's coming, that eventually computers are going to be able to beat the masters of any game.
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Indeed. China is one of the oldest contiguous civilizations on the planet, and yet it acts like some sort of second-rate banana republic that just gained independence a few years ago. Does it really matter if a computer can beat a strategy game champion?
Could it be that it's one of the oldest civilizations because they value national pride over individual pride? I don't know, but it might be a factor.
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Chill, bro, it's just a game, dude!
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But if one are basing so much of their national pride on who plays a *GAME* better than anyone else, then this is what is unfortunate, because China ought to have plenty of things to be proud of, and the notion that they would find a computer beating their best Go player somehow devaluing to them as a nation speaks tons about a misplaced sense of priorities that can't possibly do their population any good.
It's probably no more pride than Brazil or England have for football, or Americans have over baseball. I.e. considerable.
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Of course, and the country that happens to win the most medals or the most gold medals in a given Olympic year often gets bragging rights for a few days following the Olympics too... but such bragging is meant only in the spirit of sportsmanship, not to make those that didn't win feel like they have any less worth than they did before the competition.
And similarly, this match was not to prove that the Chinese Go player couldn't win, but to prove that it is possible to design a program that could always w
Re:China needs to go (Score:5, Funny)
Actually archeologists and historians attribute the longevity of the Chinese culture to their early building skills, especially bridges and fences. While mostly known for great walls and fantastic bridges, the early culture especially relished their fence building technology. This started, they theorize, about 6000 years ago when an unknown builder in what would become central China one day went out to a field on his farm, and with primitive tools created the same fence pieces we still use today. Proudly pounding the initial piece into the ground, he stood back and declared: "First post!"
Re:China needs to go (Score:4, Funny)
With such an elaborate setup for the pun-chline, how did this get modded Interesting instead of Funny?
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China has swung back and forth between isolationism and openness. Isolationism has repeatedly been an unmitigated disaster for their civilization. The Haijin [wikipedia.org] policies of the Ming Dynasty meant Europeans were able to colonize the world without competition. The "Closed Door" policy of the Qings in the 19th century meant they missed the industrial revolution. The "self sufficiency" polices of Mao from 1949-1976 made China into one of the world's poorest countries.
Walls, Isolationism, protectionism, and cen
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That having been said, China's problem is that it exists as we know it only because Zhou Zhang unified the country by force. Any country formed that way must be held down by its rulers until the population has enough and throws the rulers out. I don't see a change in our lifetimes to how China acts.
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It does seem a little petty on the part of the Chinese government to worry about censoring this type of stuff. Why not let this type of information be distributed without comment and save the real censoring efforts for more important things like making sure their citizens don't hear about the large mushroom cloud seen rising above Pyongyang.
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Does it really matter if a computer can beat a strategy game champion? We all know it's coming, that eventually computers are going to be able to beat the masters of any game.
what about the real reasons?
1. go is a Chinese game
2. the world champion is Chinese
and 3. maybe the main reason: AlphaGo is made by Google, which domains (*.google.*) are all blocked in China...
Re: China needs to go (Score:2)
Regimes like China have to maintain a facade that they are the best and unparalleled, or else the whole power structure falls apart. This is actually the whole point of censorship, and why it is integral to autocracy (or any other highly concentrated power structure.)
Er... (Score:1, Funny)
I watched it live on WeChat... do I need to feel worried now?
Citizen, turn yourself in... (Score:4, Funny)
...to your local Party HQ for sentencing. You are required to provide your own bullet.
The margin is irrelevant (Score:5, Interesting)
MCTS programs don't care about the winning margin. It was quite clear that Ke Jie was behind, but AlphaGo just didn't take unnecessary risk to win by a large margin.
Lighten up, Francis. (Score:5, Insightful)
"...that would hurt the national pride of a state which holds Go close to its heart."
Perhaps we should remind the country that we're talking about a game here.
Hell, Kasparov lost to Deep Blue 20 years ago. The concept of a world champion being defeated by a computer playing a game ain't exactly new.
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I'm rereading this statement, but it's failing to make any sense to me. What kind of demonstrations might suddenly occur, and why would that cause broadcasting the match to be banned?
Re:Lighten up, Francis. (Score:5, Interesting)
The delaying of the game's broadcast may have nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with the fact it is an international platform for China.
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Ah, censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if you didn't see it, it didn't happen.
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Ah yes, the ostrich camouflage defense.
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What if the AlphaGo AI is so advanced, that it is toying with its opponent, and letting him near-win? What if it has the strength of "the Hulk" with the subtlety of Black Widow?
This is completely misunderstanding the nature of "soft AI" contained in Alphago. You're clearly talking about hard AI, which AlphaGo is not.
AlphaGo doesn't doesn't know that there is a world outside Go. It doesn't learn. It doesn't know the meaning of 'taunt.' It doesn't know it's playing a game against the world's top human. It can't self-introspect, it can't change its programming, and it doesn't know a Go board looks like, and doesn't even know what Go is.
AlphaGo is a classifier. Given a set, it wi
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AlphaGo keeps track of both the score and of the statistical likelihood that it'll win the game. Being able to constantly evaluate these two values with high accuracy is actually a big competitive advantage. As the score doesn't really matter, it is entirely by design that during the end-game, AlphaGo deliberately sacrifices score points in order to gain a stronger position and increase the likelihood of an overall win.
In some way, winning with a minimal score demonstrates better control of the game than wi
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The algorithm is neither. As discussed frequently, it pursues the highest probability path to a win, not the highest winning margin. This means taking less risks when apparently ahead, which may look like "letting him near win" and "toying with him", by giving up small amounts of territory as long as those preclude lines of act
Where can I stream them? (Score:3)
I'm trying to find where to watch an English stream, but all I'm finding is news about China's censorship. That's great, but it's affecting me by proxy because I can't find somewhere that's going to stream it here!
The second match is at 0330 UTC on Thursday (late evening today, Wednesday, in the US)... where will it be broadcast?
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Didn't you RTFA? Everywhere but China!
Go directly to jail (Score:1)
Do no watch GO, do not collect $200.
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Where else would we get all of our cheap plastic crap?
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Explain exactly why the Chinese government should not be thrown out, and/or why the world should stop doing business with China until that happens?
Because (a) doing business with China is profitable, and profits trump morals; and (b) China, with its stronghold on manufacturing, has "the world" by the balls.
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It goes both ways. (c) China is the worlds most populous country, and due to rapid industrialisation it is full of people suddenly finding themselves several times wealthier than their parents could have dreamed. Non-Chinese companies want a slice of that pie.
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Did not work so well in Iraq, did it?
If the Chinese government would simply be thrown out, the country would collapse in to 3 or perhaps even 10 nations. The north Koreans would lose the only lash they are kept in control with. Some war lords, generals who have access to the right weapons, would found mini dictatorships. The nuclear weapon arsenal would be out of control. Millions of Chinese would emigrate to the smaller asian nations like Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.
Should I continue?
In the wake of "free speech" commencement address (Score:5, Insightful)
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China doesn't value free speech in the same way that is typical in America. They do very strongly value unity, and stability, and social cohesion.
Ministry of Truth (Score:1)
Because what should not be true can't be true! They're evil scum-sucking bastards and we're stupid and evil for trading with them. We're making the mafia that is ruling that country stronger and stronger by buying stuff that is being manufactured there and they keep killing journalists and human rights lawyers that try to stand up for little people being crushed by their mafia.
Let go of the pride (Score:2)
The reality of the modern age of computing...computers are going to be better at a lot of games than humans. Period. Just accept it now. Some games may take longer to match and exceed human capability, but it will eventually happen.
Welcome to reality,China.
Why? (Score:1)
"lost by a razor thin margin" (Score:3)
AlphaGo doesn't try and maximize its win margin. It would have won by 15 points or more if the winning margin mattered.
When all paths lead to victory there is numerical instability in the rollouts so a move that gives a 15 point win margin, might, by chance get say 99.995% chance of winning, but one of the billions of other paths that also lead to a win will, by chance - give a rollout of 99.996% chance of winning. So every move in a won game is essentially random and will tend to reduce the win margin against a skilled opponent (who will always make a move that decreases their loss margin) until the win margin is 1/2.
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AlphaGo doesn't try and maximize its win margin. It would have won by 15 points or more if the winning margin mattered.
When all paths lead to victory there is numerical instability in the rollouts so a move that gives a 15 point win margin, might, by chance get say 99.995% chance of winning, but one of the billions of other paths that also lead to a win will, by chance - give a rollout of 99.996% chance of winning. So every move in a won game is essentially random and will tend to reduce the win margin against a skilled opponent (who will always make a move that decreases their loss margin) until the win margin is 1/2.
Well then, I do hope they will activate the "maximal win margin" for the next game. I would love to see what is the gap between the best human player and AlphaGo
"a state which holds Go close to it's heart" (Score:2)
a more damaging defeat that would hurt the national pride of a state which holds Go close to its heart.
Does anyone else see a societal pressure point ripe for needling with social media bots?
Snowball Effect Paused (Score:1)
While it is to an extent censorship, it is also their temporary measure to stop a potentially deadly snowball effect.
Surely there aren't any Professional Go players on slashdot, but do imagine what happen if you've putted in 30 years for a job and found out today it is irrelevant? You will be in despair and so will your colleagues.
It's not healthy to cause a chain reaction that result in no more new Go players being encouraged to join the competition.
In fact, I highly doubt even google's researchers have
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The "Go Market" or the professional go players care not the slightest about the AI.
The AI will never compete in a professional league.